I love hearing these intelligent statements about 2001, since it was my favorite movie until I saw "Dont Look Now, " then "Vertigo" then "Carnival of Souls" then "Eraserhead" then "Night Tide" then "Last Year at Marienbad" then "Tales from the Gimli Hospital" then... I'd better stop I suppose.
But the point about silence is interesting since it came from Kubrick's desire for realism, but also his use of realistic elements as a source of drama. In the scene where Bowman comes in through the airlock without his helmet - which is actually possible though very dangerous - the use of cacophonous sounds in the close confines of the pod, with all the alarms and machinery noise, contrasted with the dead silence of the airless space, then contrasted again with the roar of the air refilling the compartment - it is extremely dramatic.
I was thinking the other day about how many people (more conventional critics) said at the time that 2001 was non-dramatic and only visual. But it wasn't non-dramatic at all - it was in some senses supremely dramatic, but in a way that dramatists had never imagined before. I'm thinking particularly of the scene with Bowman trying to get in - "I'm sorry Dave I'm afraid I can't do that." Of course people use it as a quote for humor, but if you think about the situation, the desperate reality of it, it is one of the most dramatic scenes ever put on film. And it is so ironic with a very non-dramatic man - an astronaut trained to be calm - and an artifical intelligence. There is more reality and drama in that scene than in a thousand ordinary dramas.
Also, my point about the FX in front of the camera is that most of them were done first generation - that is, without any optical printing. So that a scene with a spaceship near Jupiter was the same resolution (on 65mm camera original film) as someone talking in a room. This is not done anymore. Also the end sequence - it was the same kind of first generation quality, with a "Slit-scan" device that created the light patterns all on the original negative, not with dupes or subsequent printings. 2001 was like experimental filmmaking, but done on a vast scale by masters of the art.
But the point about silence is interesting since it came from Kubrick's desire for realism, but also his use of realistic elements as a source of drama. In the scene where Bowman comes in through the airlock without his helmet - which is actually possible though very dangerous - the use of cacophonous sounds in the close confines of the pod, with all the alarms and machinery noise, contrasted with the dead silence of the airless space, then contrasted again with the roar of the air refilling the compartment - it is extremely dramatic.
I was thinking the other day about how many people (more conventional critics) said at the time that 2001 was non-dramatic and only visual. But it wasn't non-dramatic at all - it was in some senses supremely dramatic, but in a way that dramatists had never imagined before. I'm thinking particularly of the scene with Bowman trying to get in - "I'm sorry Dave I'm afraid I can't do that." Of course people use it as a quote for humor, but if you think about the situation, the desperate reality of it, it is one of the most dramatic scenes ever put on film. And it is so ironic with a very non-dramatic man - an astronaut trained to be calm - and an artifical intelligence. There is more reality and drama in that scene than in a thousand ordinary dramas.
Also, my point about the FX in front of the camera is that most of them were done first generation - that is, without any optical printing. So that a scene with a spaceship near Jupiter was the same resolution (on 65mm camera original film) as someone talking in a room. This is not done anymore. Also the end sequence - it was the same kind of first generation quality, with a "Slit-scan" device that created the light patterns all on the original negative, not with dupes or subsequent printings. 2001 was like experimental filmmaking, but done on a vast scale by masters of the art.